ponder their understanding from the book of Genesis of how God created the universe

Two of these writers are pastors by education and profession and the other two are well-educated and thinking Christians.

Here’s a summary of their comments:

I made a careless error by referring to the earth rotating around the sun in 24 hours when in my head I was picturing the earth revolving on its axis. This is not the first time a disconnect between mind and typing fingers has surfaced.

Both pastors reminded me that one should employ the correct hermeneutic. The different windows or contexts for interpretation are historical, grammatical, literal and contextual. Pastor Dave’s comment was: “We view the Bible as literal unless there are some indicators not to do so, such as the use of ‘like or as’.”

God can do whatever he wants. He’s not confined to a certain human order or way of thinking. Exceptions/ adjustments are His prerogative.

Regarding the creation week, we need to address the implication of Exodus 20:11: For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. This verse strengthens the interpretation that each creation ‘day’ be viewed as a literal 24 hour period.

Several mentioned the fact that the Hebrew word YOM for day when used with a cardinal or ordinal number always refers to a 24-hour period.

Jesus refers to creation and the flood – Luke 17:27 – People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. And in Mark 10:6-9 But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh.Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

Implication from Jesus’ using creation and the flood in His teaching is significant since He is the creator of the universe.

One commenter mentioned that assuming a consistent length of time for canyons, stalactites and islands to emerge or form is evidence of uniformitarian thinking. That was a new term for me, but it refers to the ‘a priori’ presupposition (i.e. not proven) that the emergence of geological features is consistent over time.

Another commenter brought up the problem of death if one takes YOM to mean a long period of many years by quoting Genesis 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. In accepting the OEC view of time passed, he saw a conflict between death, a change that came about AFTER the Fall, and God calling creation ‘good’. Death is NOT good.

This same reader wanted to know whether I took as literally true God’s fashioning of Eve starting with Adam’s rib if I did not take YOM to mean a 24-hour period.

Finally, and probably most interesting to me, was what to do about Day 1’s ‘Let there be light’ and Day 4’s ‘ And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,

Just addressing the distinction between the Day 1 light and the Day 4 lights, some questions emerge in my mind:

What was the nature of the light on Day 1?

We measure ‘evening and morning’ according to our spot on our planet rotating away from (aka sunset) and toward the sun (aka sunrise). But that’s because the sun is a bounded, focused, concentrated container of light. It’s ‘fixed’ so to speak relative to the earth. But for the earlier, Day 1 light, we don’t have enough information to say how wide-spread and diffused this light was. From the text it apparently was enough to support the growth of vegetation.

Voilà what I have gleaned from these generous and kind lengthy posted comments and personal emails.

Today’s post is an example of what Logical Joes and Janes do when confront by meaty opposing arguments. They take the time to understand what their interlocutor presents. It is unreasonable (not based on sound reason) to proceed further with one’s own argument without first understanding the other point of view.

I’ve been eager to ‘muck around’ with the pushback and the way I best do that is:

to print out and take notes by hand from each person’s comments.

next to see any repetition among the views.

then to summarize them in my own words

finally to check back with the originators for confirmation in the form of a question like

Did I accurately describe your arguments? If not, please edit and help me to understand your point of view.

So, fellow thinkers, have I done your case justice?

By the way, prioritizing this kind of clarification has given ME time to ponder and think more deeply. And that is always worthwhile.

Among some believing Christians, there exists a ‘friendly’ debate that centers on the meaning of the creation account in Genesis. The principle point of contention concerns the definition of ‘day‘ and ‘morning and evening‘.

Young earth creationists (YEC) argue that the ‘plain’ understanding of the text is to take the Hebrew term YOWM to mean a 24-hour period of time. They do, to their credit, acknowledge that the Hebrew language allows for the existence of different concepts that YOM can mean. But in Genesis, they seem to insist on the above translation.

One of their buttressing evidences for taking YOWM to mean a period of 24 hours is the addition of the phrase, “and there was evening and there was morning, the first (second, third etc) day.”

With love, but disagreeing respectfully with my Christian brothers and sisters, I want to offer the compelling reason why I do NOT accept a six 24-hour day interpretation of the creation account.

The simple reason finds its support in the fact that the Hebrew language contains far fewer words than English. Therefore, each noun can represent multiple concepts. One can still take the text ‘literally’, but one has to take into consideration other factors.

Caveat: I am a layman who has neither formally studied Hebrew nor biblical theology. I am simply a thinking Jane who is puzzled at the tenacity some Christians employ in their defense of a young earth interpretation. My hypothesis is that they strongly defend the inerrancy of God’s word as do I. But the difference, I think (and I could be wrong) is that YECers fear that admitting to any other interpretation of the creation of our universe starts Christians sliding down the proverbial slippery slope.

How does a ‘slippery slope’ defense go?

X might not be false, but if I admit X, then Y will follow.

For that defense to be true, one must prove true the following two premises:

X causes Y

Y is detrimental

By the way, not all slippery slope arguments are fallacies as some claim. If one DOES prove the likelihood or truth of the above theses, then a slippery slope argument can be safely employed.

So what is the slippery slope line of thinking that YECers adhere to? I’ve heard it go like this:

The hypothetical major premise: If we admit that the Hebrew term YOWM, when coupled with the ‘evening and morning’ reference, may mean other than a 24-hour period, then other Bible passages might be so stretched that God’s intended meaning is lost and Scripture is up for one’s pet translation.

I DO hold to a high view of Scripture and believe in the inerrancy and even the infallibility of the original manuscripts as given by God through the Holy Spirit to the holy men who wrote the texts.

Furthermore, I take the Hebrew definitions of YOWM literally. One of the meanings for YOWM IS a long period of time. In addition, one of the meanings of evening and morning IS a marker for beginning and end. Daniel 8:26 in the ESV states: The vision of the evenings and the mornings that has been told is true, but seal up the vision, for it refers to many days from now.”

When I looked up that verse in Blue Letter Bible, the Hebrew meaning of the English plural words ‘the evenings and the mornings’ was actually in the singular. So one can render the translation of the first part of the verse like this: “The vision of the evening and the morning that has been told is true”

And taking YOWM to mean a period of time, here is the last part of the verse, “but seal up the vision for it refers to much time from now.”

But why do I THINK that the creation of the universe took a long period of time? I’m not going to develop this theory to any depth besides to state it. I know it deserves a book and I am not equipped nor do I choose to devote the time to that endeavor. But here goes my line of thinking:

Light was created on Day 1

The sun was created on the 4th day

But…..the phrase ‘evening and morning’ describes Day 1

The idea of ‘evening and morning’ to mark a 24-hour day depends on the earth revolving on its axis in the presence of a fixed light source. We don’t know the nature of the light that God created on Day 1

Recall that the sun, a defined illuminating star, does not ‘show up’ in Genesis until Day 4

Therefore, the phrase ‘evening and morning’ could also refer to a concept other than the beginning and end of one 24-hour period.

That, dear friends, in a brief and simplistic nutshell, is my first reason why I am an OEC. There are others, like the impugning of God’s character to conclude that He has created geographical features with apparent age. That sounds like a deception for the God who is by nature TRUE.

Be assured that those who disagree with me do not hurt my feelings I HOPE that I mean it when I assert that:

I am NOT my beliefs

My identity is secure and fixed as a ‘new creature in Christ’

And I do believe that God is capable of anything, for He is God. So I am open to being persuaded by the evidence. In all we think, say, write and do, may God be honored by those of us who carry His name. To Him be the glory.

PS:and do I think that some YEC fall prey to a fallacious slippery slope view? Yes, because

I don’t think that the translation of YOWM I argue for (the X in the slippery slope fallacy) will lead to a Yof diluting inerrancyor ‘mythologizing’ God’s Word.

Literalists get bad press and are viewed as simplistic and irrational at times.

I’ve recently heard both an agnostic, Stanley Fish, and a Christian, Hugh Ross, expound on how to take a text literally. And they are nothing but reasoned and intelligent men who document a sensible manner to textual analysis. Both men are experts in their field: Fish is currently a visiting professor at the Cardozo School of Law in NYC. Hugh Ross is an astrophysicist who founded and guides a Christian think tank called Reasons to Believe.

Our law professor is a practitioner of intentional originalism. Simplified, this is a method of interpreting the Constitution regarding cases that come before a court. One examines the meaning of the original words in the written text and searches to find the original intent of those who wrote the law or the Constitution. Antonin Scalia, the recently deceased Supreme Court justice was also an originalist. However, he placed more emphasis on the text and differed from Fish who gave more weight to the intent of the author(s).

Although this distinction is not that wide, what IS striking is the vast gulf in worldviews between Scalia and Fish. Apparently some critics of originalism have criticized Justice Scalia’s originalism as just ‘code’ for conservative values. That’s a simplistic strawman fallacy, however, even per Fish.

The other misunderstood ‘smart man’ is Hugh Ross who as a Christian takes the Bible literally. And he is an old earth creationist. Yes, he does believe the universe was created in 6 days. But what counts is the translation of the Hebrew term, ‘day’. As Ross explains, Hebrew uses a small vocabulary compared to English. Here’s what Wikipedia writes:

Although it is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word yom has several literal definitions: [1]

To determine the appropriate literal meaning for words in Genesis, one has to look at the context and reasonably (based on REASON) evaluate which meaning best fits the context. Yes, this is a humble undertaking, but not beyond the abilities God has given us and redeemed for His use.

Here’s a clue for Hugh Ross that Yom means an epoch or long time, his view. He points to the words ‘evening….morning, the first day‘ and makes the obvious observation that until Day 4, there IS no sun, hence no 24-hour rotation of the earth. Look at the text below:

Genesis 1:3-5

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness.5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

What do you make, then, of the words ‘evening….morning’? Dr. Hugh Ross offers the following, as what he thinks could very well have been the intention of the author, God:

‘evening and morning’ are used to communicate the start and the end of a period of time

In the evangelical world, there are Christians who self-identify as ‘young earth creationists’. From some of the criticisms I’ve heard leveled at their ‘old earth creationist’ brothers and sisters, these Christians FEAR that assenting to ‘an old earth creation model’ smuggles in an accompanying assent to Darwinian evolution. I can understand that fear, but I believe it is unfounded and not reasonable. These believers are acting more like liberal legislators or judges who fear that originalism might open the door to conservative values.

These differing approaches to finding truth DO encourage me in one way. They showcase that most folks really do believe and function in a world of values and truth. (good, bad, right, wrong…). And the fact that people hold differing worldviews does not prevent them from agreeing on certain principles.

It’s actually a true analysis of many Americans. When I was hired at a classical Christian school, I was assigned one ‘extra class’ to teach: logic….to 8th graders! Not knowing the first thing about rational thought and argumentation, it took a year for me stumbling my way through the curriculum to begin to understand it. And as I continued to grow more skilled in the tools I was acquiring, I realized what a treasure I had been handed.

Logical reasoning is foundational to reading correctly, to arguing cogently, to sniffing out holes in other people’s assertions. This discipline also goes hand-in-hand with apologetics, that body of knowledge that provides a rational defense for the truth of the claims of Jesus in the Bible.

In my personal life, I continue a gentle but on-going campaign, through prayer and conversational engagement, to provoke a family member to let go of her 4 score of false teaching imbibed in a liberal church. When we start to disagree and I turn to the Bible to back my point, she’ll retort:

That’s just man’s opinion!

She does NOT believe in the divine and infallible inspiration of the writers through the power of the Holy Spirit. Why not? Because every other Christian she knows, outside of our family and one of her nieces, believes that a ‘fundamentalist’ (her word) interpretation of the Bible naïvely accepts what was the view of primitive men and women, way back ‘then’!

Right off the bat, her argument is weakened by resorting to Chronological Snobbery, that fallacy that rests on the assumption that simply because something is old OR new, it must be better or worse. No legs under that assertion!

When she restates her attack and critical view of the Bible, she then reminds me that we have travelled this road before, she and I, and we just need to leave it be.

And being the gracious gal that I am, I demur. (I’ll leave you to decide the truth of THAT claim!)

Today, though, I heard a powerful way of reasoning that I think will give her pause. Let me try out this hypothetical dialogue. Then you can let me know what you think and how she might respond.

me: Just because someone is baptized as a baby, that doesn’t make them a Christian

her: That’s not so!

me: Well, John records Jesus informing Nicodemus that he had to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God. And Jesus likens this spiritual birth to the wind blowing where it wants; man does not control or initiate being ‘born from above’. It’s a God-launched change, unlike man-centered baptisms that ASSUME the efficacy of a priest declaring ‘you’re a Christian by the power of the Holy Spirit’ (and this procedure).

her: (Version A) – That’s just John’s view!

me: What? John was an eyewitness and disciple of Jesus!

her: (or Version B) – Humph, the Bible was written by men and things get lost in multiple translations and in all the copying.

It’s at THIS point where we usually reach our impasse and move on to something else. I respect her because she’s older and I don’t want to be TOO pushy.

But now I think I will add….

me: You do believe that Jesus died for your sins and that you’ll have eternal life with him when you die?

her: Yes, at least I certainly hope so!

me: And where do you find that in the Bible? What makes you so sure that you are banking on a true doctrine or teaching? (Greg Koukl, a Christian apologist, advises: ‘Ask a question to make a point.‘)

her: I’m not a ‘Bible scholar’ like you, but I know the church teaches that.

me: Why do you trust what ‘men’ say and teach? What if that doctrine is just a primitive and naïve interpretation?

her: I have no idea.

me: (another possible question for her) Do you believe the accounts of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus? If so, why?

me: So do you always believe a position to be true because ‘everyone believes it’? Could ‘everyone’ be wrong about something?

I’m not sure how she might respond. Any ideas? My fervent prayer is that this dear lady finally abandons her resistance and trust God. After all, if one can believe the biggest miracle (or fish story!)

of the immaterial God coming to earth in the form of another mortal human being,

of being murdered under trumped-up false charges,

and of then being raised from the dead and ascending to Heaven,

….then why not take Jesus at his word regarding the truth of all the Scriptures?

Matthew 5:18 (Jesus asserts) I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place.